I'm Fine
by somebadhat
Summary: Blythe passes away and House hasn't shown up to work for days, Cuddy goes to his apartment to see if House is okay. Set during season six


Hey guys! I need a favor, right now my 'Humpty Dumpty Sat on a Wall' fic is delivering the biggest bat of writers block. Could you pretty pretty please leave reviews with ideas and suggestions? If no that story will sit there unfinished for ages and I had such high hopes for it. Anyways, enjoy.

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House's team sat at their table in the DDX room as usual, picking through a pile of cases. They had the luxury of finding interesting cases, though House had the final say.

Chase picked one up that seemed to be compelling, but just as he opened his mouth, House snatched the file from his hand and glanced it over.

"Nope." He tossed it back on Chase's chest and limped to the other side of the table.

The phone began to ring.

"Someone get that." House said absentmindedly.

Chase, Taub, Thirteen, and Foreman all looked at each other.

"Rock paper scissors?" Chase suggested.

Thirteen lost. She pulled herself out of her chair hastily and picked up the phone.

"Dr. Gregory House's office, may I take a message?" she said lamely. "You sure?" She placed the speaker on her shoulder. "House, he says it's important. It's some doctor, I don't think he's local."

"Tell him I'm not in and I won't be in, and to _leave a message_. He probably wants me to speak at a medical conference. It happens when you're the best diagnostician in the whole wide world." He said in a flowery voice.

Thirteen brought the phone back to her face.

"Sir, if the message really is important I promise it will make it to Dr. House. He's a, uh, a very busy man, and it's unlikely that he'll be able to take your call personally." She glanced back at House.

He gave her a mock thumbs up. She nodded slyly with a small smirk on her face.

The smirk instantly disappeared though. Her face grew somber, stern. There was no longer playfulness etched into the lines on her forehead. Her eyebrows drew together with concern. House thought nothing of it, of course, for all he knew it could be a sob story from a patient who wants him to take their case. Maybe it was and she was buying into it. But Thirteen never was one to buy into sob stories after all.

Thirteen cleared her throat, said thank you, and hung up the phone. Her hand lingered on the receiver.

"House, I'm so sorry."

The whole team was facing her now, obviously curious.

"Well spit it out already, we don't have all day here." He glanced at a nonexistent watch on his arm. "Oh, wait, yes we do! Take your time." He said sarcastically.

"The doctor who called, he just told me your mother passed away. She fell down her stairs and fractured her hip. She couldn't move or reach her phone, which she had on her but they assume it slid away from her when she fell."

The room was so quiet a pin could drop and it would feel like a sonic boom. House's face was completely and eerily emotionless. He rubbed his chin.

"Is that all they said?"

"They mentioned she was alone when it happened."

Foreman, Chase, and Taub looked at each other, not sure what to do or say in this situation.

"I-"

Taub started to try to say something to House but he was basically cut off by the glare he was being given.

"Before any of you start trying to console me, find a damn case and get out of here. I'm fine, go."

The three men left but Thirteen stayed behind. She stood there wordlessly with one hand on the desk and the other on her hip. She bit her lip slightly.

"_Go_."

And she did.

[H] [H] [H] [H]

Cuddy sat in her office, busy with paperwork. It was unusual for her to be so absorbed in her work that she didn't realize when someone walked in, but today was just one of those days. She almost jumped out of her skin when she saw Thirteen standing in front of her with paperwork in her hands.

"Oh geez, you scared me. What do you need?"

"I need you to sign off on a nerve biopsy for our patient."

She gave Thirteen a questioning look.

"What are you doing here asking for risky procedures? That seems to be House's deal, isn't it?"

"He's not here today, Dr. Cuddy."

"What do you mean he's not here today, I saw him walk in just this morning."

"He left."

"He can't just leave, that's not how a job works. I pay him to be here and that's where I expect him to be," she looked at the clock, "not to mention he's skipping out on clinic duty. He's on the schedule this week." Cuddy looked angry. She got her cell phone out of her pocket and quickly dialed House's number. Thirteen reached forward and snapped the phone shut. Cuddy raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"You better have a damn well good reason for doing that."

"House's mom died. He just got the phone call a couple hours ago. He told us he was fine and to go get a case, and later he called us and told us to call him if anything happened but not to bother him."

Cuddy's expression softened.

"_Is_ he fine?"

"Not sure. He seemed pretty out of it when I told him but then again, this is House."

Cuddy nodded, taking in this information.

"So for the biopsy…"

"Oh, of course not. Find a way around it, he's not sick enough to have an excuse for such a risky procedure."

[H] [H] [H] [H]

Yesterday he had gotten the call about his mother and left work. Today he just didn't show up at all. Tomorrow, well, who knows?

House was on his couch, wallowing in his sorrows. And in his whiskey. He was debating on switching from drinking out the glass to straight out the bottle. It'd be so much easier to just cut out the middleman.

_Tap tap tap tap._ Someone was knocking at his door. It was about 9:00pm. He didn't want to get up. He wanted to sit right where he was and finish this bottle.

_Tap tap tap._ If he ignored it long enough they would go away. He didn't want anyone _cooing_ over him and saying how _sorry_ they were, he wanted to be alone. The guilt he felt deep in his bones was incredible. House was not a man who felt guilty. Or at least a man who would admit it to himself.

"House. I know you're there. You can't skip two days of work and think I won't notice you're not showing up."

House heard Cuddy's muffled speech through the door but chose to ignore her.

"Your patient is on the brink of death and your team has no clue why. You could at least answer your phone."

She was talking loudly and deliberately so he could hear her. House heard her fine; he just knew she would say anything to have him open up.

"House."

There was a pause. Had she finally gone?

The door to his apartment opened and Cuddy tentatively walked into his apartment, looking around for House. There he was on the couch, not surprisingly with a bottle in his hand.

"You really don't lock your doors at night?"

House glanced over his shoulder and looked at Cuddy, not perturbed in the slightest that she was in his home.

"Must've forgot." He kept his eyes on the glass in his hand.

Cuddy rounded the couch so she could get a good look at House. His eyes were red and brooding, and there was almost a dark sense to them. His face was pale and he wore a fixed expression. It pained Cuddy to look at. To say the least he looked like crap.

Cuddy had felt so disconnected from House ever since they had gone to the medical conference with Wilson and Lucas made his surprise appearance. She heard him sniff at his runny nose and the sound alone about broke her.

"How are you doing, House, really."

"I'm fine."

"So I've heard."

"You can show yourself out. If I need anyone, which I don't, I'll call Wilson."

He wouldn't meet her gaze. Cuddy dropped her suit jacket into a chair. She stepped forward and sat on the couch with him. Looking him up and down, with his slumped shoulders and sullen face she could see he was barely holding himself together and the last thing he wanted to do was talk. She brought her hand up to rest on his stubbled jaw, a simple gesture, rubbing her thumb across his cheek. He unexpectedly leaned into her touch, closing his eyes and dropping his head so her fingers ran into his hair.

"Cuddy," he said quietly.

"Yeah, House?"

He transitioned so his head was in her shoulder. Cuddy could smell the alcohol on his breath and would have found this to be comical had the situation been completely different.

"My leg hurts." He said somewhat pathetically. His voice was somewhat nasally as he spoke, croaking out the words so softly.

Cuddy knew what House really was trying to say though. She traced his eyebrow slowly with her thumb.

"I know." She whispered. "I know it does."

They lay there for a few moments silently.

"I got a voicemail from my mom. She wanted to tell me I didn't call enough and that she missed me. And I ignored her call. When she fell she was leaving the message."

"I'm so sorry, House." She meant it. What House was feeling was a terrible thing to have to feel. He must have listened to it, all of it.

House got up and walked to his bathroom. He looked at himself in the mirror.

She followed him and stood behind him, making eye contact with him through his reflection.

"I know you've felt much more love than you've shown."

"Yeah?" he quietly snorted at his runny nose. "And just how do you know that?" he asked throatily, looking away from Cuddy.

She suddenly wanted to lean forward and kiss the back of his neck. She wanted to run her hands over his shoulders and onto his chest, and to turn him around and kiss him slowly and softly. She wanted to ball up the material of his shirt in her fists and kiss him till her breathing was labored. She wondered about Lucas for the slightest, slightest second, but pushed him out of his mind. She wanted to do those things, and so she did.

Cuddy placed her hands on his back and brought her lips just right of House's throat. His eyes snapped up and he looked at her through the mirror questioningly.

"What are you doing?"

Without answering, she ran her hand down his arm so she could grab his hand. He twisted around so they faced each other. And they looked at each other. They looked at each other till it hurt to look, till the amount of eye contact felt indecent. In a way it was. Cuddy leaned into him and pressed her lips to his, grazing them almost. She pushed into him further, and in that moment he didn't need to be told twice exactly what she was asking for.

House broke away, his fingers resting on her stomach as he pushed her lightly out of his bathroom and into his bedroom. Cuddy guided his hands to the waist on her pencil skirt. He found the zipper and brought it down slowly, as they walked at a snail's pace to the bed itself. The gray material dropped to the floor and Cuddy was standing before him in her lace panties. Other than that all she had was a black camisole with lace at the top.

Cuddy sat down on the bed and House's fingertips played at the bottom of her camisole, but he didn't pull it up. He looked like he was contemplating.

"What?" Cuddy asked.

House sighed.

"I can't do this if you're just going to go back to Lucas when we're done."

His fingers gripped the fabric so tightly, as if letting go, not sliding this barrier between them off and tossing it away, would do him over. He looked at her. She knew she had herself an ultimatum.

She hadn't thought about this at all. She hadn't considered whether or not sex with House meant her and Lucas were over. She figured she could deal with that later. House wanted a decision now, though. Was she ready to give up on Lucas, sweet, funny Lucas, who was great with Rachel, for a recovering drug addict?

She looked at House and he bore into her with such intensity. He was pleading to her with his icy blue eyes, and Cuddy knew she loved House. She could see that maybe Mayfield had made an impact on him. He was different now, changed. Lucas was sweet and funny but he wasn't someone Cuddy could stay with for long.

"House," she began, and paused because he had a weird expression on his face.

He dropped the edge of her shirt instantly, looking at the ground. He cleared his throat uncomfortably and stepped back. Cuddy's hand darted out to grab his and pull him towards her. He thought she was going to say that she couldn't do it.

"House, yes. It will be over with Lucas, I promise."

House breathed like a thousand pounds had been lifted off his chest.

"But does that mean we, that we're, together?"

"No, I want you to leave your boyfriend so we can sleep together once and continue to have a platonic relationship from there on out."

Cuddy chuckled.

"Well, get on with it then." She gestured to her top.

"Gladly."

He swept her shirt over her head and placed it on the bed next them. He unsnapped her bra slowly and proceeded to slide her lace panties down her long slender legs. As he did so he ran his hands along her smooth legs, noticing that she had recently shaved. He relished the sleek feeling of her.

He brushed his face next to hers as he kissed her again, expertly moving his tongue into her mouth. Cuddy pulled House's shirt off him. She desperately tried to unbutton his faded jeans before she continued to rip off his clothing.

They moved together, slowly and sweetly, tension building between them. The friction was achingly wonderful, and when they both went over the edge, their breathing had become ragged and loud.

As they lay next to each other on House's bed they simultaneously came across the same thought: What happens next?

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I know this isn't my best, but every time I write it's practice right? Leave a review on your way out friends.

-Tiff


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